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A war is raging, but it's not fought with guns. It's an invisible battle between true and false worldviews taking place inside people's heads, says Jeff Myers, president of Summit Ministries in Manitou Springs, where 1,211 young people attended this summer's 12-day training sessions featuring 56 hours on religious liberty, sexuality and intelligent design.

Myers' book, "The Secret Battle of Ideas about God - Overcoming the Outbreak of Five Fatal Worldviews," was published in May by Springs-based David C Cook.

Summit commissioned the Barna Group to see if practicing Christians embrace these five worldviews: secularism, Marxism, postmodernism, new spirituality and Islam.

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Barna concluded that "only 17 percent of Christians who consider their faith important and attend church regularly actually have a biblical worldview," generating this Christianity Today headline: "Many Practicing Christians Agree with Marxism (and Other Competing Worldviews)."

You can take the "Worldview Checkup" on Cook's website (www.secretbattlebook.com/checkup.html).

You will be judged as embracing new spirituality if you agree with this statement: "If you do good, you will receive good, and if you do bad, you will receive bad."

What if you think the financial crisis of 2007-08, or recent scandals involving Wells Fargo or Volkswagen, reveal a need for regulation? Barna's Summit research says you have a Marxist worldview if you disagree with this statement: "If the government leaves businesses alone, they will mostly do what's right."

Myers says many people infected with fatal worldview "viruses" don't realize the problems they face.

"According to secularists, a mother's saying 'I love you' to a child is not an indication that the mother is trying to feed the child's soul; she's just using words to keep the child close and to enhance its chances of survival," Myers writes. "When (secularist) lovers say 'I love you,' they aren't making a commitment to be together no matter what. They're just describing their hormonal reactions."

Long history in region

Summit has been teaching worldviews to young people here since 1964, when John Birch Society founder Robert Welch was a teacher. Next March, the $8 million ministry will host STAND, its first worldview event for adults.

Alumni include former U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., and former Idaho state Rep. Curtis Bowers, a Republican whose DVD, "Agenda: Grinding America Down," argues that Marxists are subverting America from within. Supporters include James Dobson, the Focus on the Family founder who now runs Family Talk.

Summit survived the implosion of American Christian College, which was founded in Tulsa by anti-communist crusader the Rev. Billy James Hargis. Hargis resigned after confessing to associate David Noebel that he had sex with male and female students. Noebel led Summit for 49 years and now leads the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade.

Hargis' fall led Noebel to research the "horrors of seduction by expert male homosexuals." Noebel later worked with the authors of Colorado's Amendment 2 limiting gay rights, which the U.S. Supreme Court overturned, and he argued for quarantining people with HIV.

Summit students still hear lectures about homosexuality, but Noebel's references to "lowlife perverts" have been replaced by affirmations that homosexuals are created by God and deserve love and respect.

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Answer: Worldviews are patterns of ideas that generate beliefs, convictions and habits. We believe that Christianity opens up reality in a way that other worldviews simply don't. A lot of worldviews obscure reality, making it harder to find answers to the great life questions about human purpose and meaning. But people tend to be consistent with their underlying assumptions.

Q: What's your goal or intended outcome?

A: To help students see that ideas have consequences. Ideas also have roots, and if you understand the roots of your ideas as you grow as a person, you can be more rooted in the right ideas. Our surveys show that our alumni are more likely to belong to churches, vote and be good citizens.

Q: David Noebel focused on two worldviews he deems destructive: Marxism and secular humanism. Other teachers focus on deism, nihilism, existentialism or even consumerism. How did you choose the five fatal worldviews in your book?

A: The worldviews we teach have changed over time, but the five I explore in the book are responsible for 90 percent or more of the dominant ideas we face in our culture.

Q: Why did you add Islam to the list of fatal worldviews?

A: I want to answer in a way that is sensitive to my Muslim friends, but the main problem is the Koran's teaching on jihad. While most Muslims interpret jihad as personal self-discipline, a startling number believe jihad should be forced on people through the raising up of armies. Failing to understand this has made our political challenges intractable. There are grains of truth in every worldview, but we can't ignore the problems of a worldview that is held by 1.5 billion people.

Q: After being named Summit's president in 2012, you experienced the Waldo Canyon fire, which forced a Summit evacuation; your wife had an accident and brain injury; you went through a divorce; and you experienced a period of depression. How did worldviews help you through this crisis?

A: I had run out of emotional energy and essentially lost the capacity to care about anything. I also felt embarrassment at being a ministry leader who had lost his marriage. In times of great pain and stress, people - like Job in the Bible - ask God: Where are you? My pain revealed the viruses lodged in my heart and mind that convinced me that I was unloved and I was a failure. But my Christian worldview assured me that God loved me. I read through the New Testament asking the question, "What does Jesus really teach?" I wouldn't trade the lessons I've learned for anything, but given the choice, I never want to go through this again.

Q: In the book you describe flawed worldviews as dangerous viruses. Doesn't this kind of rhetoric cause Christians to separate themselves from the people who need Christian influences?

A: When people are sick, we don't condemn them. We invest in them to help their bodies get stronger and healthier. It's the same with worldviews. It's not people that are the problem; it's the ideas that people have picked up.

Q: What are you doing to keep Summit relevant in the future?

A: Everyone I meet is asking questions such as, "Am I loved?" "Why do I hurt?" "What meaning is there in life?" "Why can't we get along?" and "Is there any hope?" In "The Secret Battle of Ideas," I try to show how idea-fragments of today's worldviews infect us, making us miserable and obscuring the answers to those questions. Jesus' answers are unique and more relevant than ever.